Staying above water

2011 has been kicking my butt. Since the beginning of the year, I feel like I've been struggling to find some balance and routine in my life. Every time I think I'm barely getting the hang of it, something happens to change things. After a while, I'm really just forced to roll with the punches and expect the unexpected.

This week is a great example. On Tuesday, I had a dentist appointment in the morning. I decided to work from home since I had no meetings. Around 2pm, I get a call from the kids' school that Max is sick. He threw up and has a temperature of 101. I decide to pick him up earlier than normal but didn't end up getting him until around 5:30pm. Luckily, he was in a good mood. But coming home with a fever means that he can't go to school the next day. So I call around for reinforcements since Wednesday is a meeting filled day for me. I managed to find morning and afternoon coverage between Rick and his parents. Tonight, Max still had a slight fever of 100 before bed. I have to hope and pray that he wakes up without fever so that he can go to school and hope he doesn't get sent home again.

Lately, my routine has been a bit like this:

2am - 6:30am - Max will wake up any time in this range. I give him a bottle. I really should try to soothe him without it but I'm too sleepy and don't want to wake up Jalen. So I take the easy route and give him the milk.

7am - I get up and get myself ready for work

8am - I wake up Max and get him ready for school. Sometimes he wakes up earlier, around 7:30am. I just let him cry/whine in his crib.

8:30am - I leave and take the bus to work. Rick gets Jalen ready and drops both kids off to school.

9:30am - 5:30pm - work at the office

5:30pm - 6:30pm - commute home by bus, pick up Jalen and Max from school

6:30pm - 8:30pm - cook dinner, feed the kids, and get them to bed. lately, Rick has been working late, so 2 -3 nights out of the week I'm on my own. This part of the day gets pretty tough.

8:30pm - 12am - wash dishes, catch up on chores, then more work. We'll faithfully watch Glee on Tuesday nights but other than that, we're both just hammering away at the lap top.

rinse and repeat.

Max's one year photo shoot

I finally got around to scheduling Max's one year photo shoot. He got his very first haircut a couple of weeks ago in preparation for this event. His hair was standing up straight for a long time until it got so long that it started laying down flat. So we thought it was finally time to cut it. Here are some of my favorite shots.



Jalen was a great helper at the photo shoot, propping Max up in the group shots. He was a real ham, just having a great time and laughing up a storm. He looks so mature in these photos, you couldn't tell that he's not even 4 years old yet. He looks so grown up and handsome!


These shots of Max and Jalen together are my absolute favorites. These images feel like sweet rewards of all the hard work we've put into raising our kids.

Max is one year old!

My baby turned 1 on Feb. 1, 2011. We celebrated by going to our neighborhood Red Robin. Max devoured a whole half of avocado, nibbled on some french fries and then got his first taste of ice cream. Because it was a Tuesday night, Red Robin made a special appearance which didn't faze Max at all but totally freaked out Jalen.

On Friday, Feb. 4, I took Max for his one year check up. He was 20lb 11oz (10 - 25%) and 31" (75 - 90%). His weight gain growth curve has slowed down since he was in the 50th percentile at his 9 months visit. I explained he recently transitioned to table food from baby food and just started day care. The doctor said it was understandable given the circumstances and asked that we follow up in 6 weeks to check his weight again. So now I have to focus on fattening Max up!

Max's first birthday party

I had a long struggle figuring out what to do with Max's first birthday party. We hosted Jalen's first birthday party at our house when we had about 10 kids around the age of 1 and their parents. The kids were easy to contain and the adults had a good time. This time around, the same 10 kids are 3 years old and will have too much energy and not enough space to work it off if I were to have the party at home again. At the same time, I really didn't have the time or energy to clean the house pre party and post party. I didn't want to have the party at a bouncy house or something similar because then the party would be for the siblings and not really about Max. Maybe I was making things too hard for myself but my criteria for the party were: 1) not at my house 2) a buffet style lunch. After some trial and error we found the perfect location at Rick's friend Duke's restaurant. They had a private area for parties where we had 2 dedicated waiters. The party went off without a hitch and I was very relieved and happy at the end of it.

Tales from daycare

I've been in pure survival mode the past 4 weeks that I haven't been able to update the blog. On Jan. 17, Max started daycare at Newport. He was fine at drop off but at 12pm, I got a call from the school. They said he was very upset and not eating or drinking! I was frantic, trying to figure out how to clear my schedule for the rest of the afternoon so I could rescue him ASAP. Daddy's suggestion was to just leave him there. No way! Apparently he cried himself to sleep around 1pm and slept for about 45 min. I picked him up at 3pm and he was desperate to see me. For the rest of the first week, he ate very little and drank very little. So I had to make sure that I fed him as big of a breakfast and dinner as possible. I typically pick him up around 6pm and his face is always raw and red from crying and being tired. It's so hard to see that. On top of everything, Jalen came home with a fever of 102 that week and was sick.

The second week at daycare, Max was sent home Monday with a fever of 103. As per standard school policy, he had to stay away a minimum of 24 hours. I was stuck since I had a meeting I had to go to the next day. Luckily, my former nanny was able to come that day and relieve me.

Now he's in his 4th week of daycare and he's doing a lot better. It's amazing how quickly kids adapt to their environment. During week 1, he didn't drink whole milk and he didn't know how to use a sippy cup. Now, he drinks whole milk out of a sippy cut and self feeds. Here's a video of him eating spaghetti.

Max is 11 months old!

Happy new year! Our little Max is almost 1 year old! At 11 months, he has 2 bottom teeth and 2 budding top teeth. He can crawl, cruise, pull himself to a standing position and gracefully sit down from standing. In early December, I got word from Jalen's daycare/preschool that they will have a spot open for Max starting Jan. 17! Since then, I've been frantically trying to prepare Max to go to daycare. He will have to learn very quick! So we're been introducing people food to him such as tofu, avocado and carrots. Since then, he's been showing that he's tired of bland baby food and is more and more excited to eat our food.

For this portion of the photoshoot, my dad tried to flatten Max's natural fauxhawk. See how the hair is just fighting to stand back up?

What is this relic? Is that an iPhone 2G?

Here's Max at 11 months...

Here's Jalen at about 10 months. Jalen had a much chubbier face but in this picture, they look a lot a like!

Christmas Day

This is the first year that Jalen, at 3 and a half, really got excited about Christmas. He knew that it was the day he got to open presents. And he knew there were lots of presents waiting for him! On Christmas morning, he came into our bed and managed to wait until about 9am before we started opening presents. We opened presents from friends at home then went over to Grandma and Grandpa's to open the rest of the presents.




This Toy Story 3 Lego set was on Jalen's wish list. He says "the Claw! the Claw!"

Here is Max with his classic Eeyore look with cousin Taylor.


Jalen was so excited to finally get his lady bug Pillow Pet. He has seen the TV commercial every morning. After making it into a pillow, he asked "Mommy, can you help me turn this into a cozy animal?"